What advantages does ozone have over chlorine as a primary water disinfectant?
Although ozone does not receive widespread use in the United States as a primary drinking water disinfectant this may change in the future because ozone does have a number of advantages over chlorine and chloramines. Some have reported that ozone can be up to 2500 times as powerful a disinfectant as chlorine under certain conditions (Hamil and Clawson, Water Technology, April 1997). Ozone is capable of destroying all cysts, fungus, viral agents and bacteria instantly, whereas, chlorine is not effective in destroying protozoa cysts and may take 30-60 minutes to destroy bacteria or other agents. Ozone is much more capable of penetrating and destroying bio-films in distribution systems and water wells than chlorine. Unlike chlorine, ozone does not form halogenated organics like trihalomethane, and in fact actually destroys them. Ozone does not generate byproducts of oxygenation that contaminates a water source because ozone degrades to regular oxygen leaving no harmful residual in water.
